[ bounced from unsubbed "R.Kelly Mickey" <rkmickey at yahoo.com> ]
Philip Ferguson (in a typically interesting post)
wrote:
>Milligan (and the paper's co-founder Ethna Carberry)
were republicans and revolutionaries.
>They were part of the last generation of Protestant
revolutionaries of any size (ie there have
>been individual Protestant republicans since then,
but never an important section of a generation).
>Jack White, Roger Casement, Constance Markievicz,
Maud Gonne, Michael Rooney, and
>various other important republican figures of the
time were also members of this generation
>of Protestants.
It is sadly true that after this generation (born in
the 1860s) Protestant representation in the republican
or nationalist movements in Ireland became very small
indeed. But it is worth noting that of those named by
Philip, at least three became Catholics: Maud Gonne
in about 1903, and Constance Markievicz and Roger
Casement while in prison after the Easter Rising of
1916 - in Casement's case while awaiting execution.
That three such committed Irish revolutionaries felt
strongly enough not just to reject their Protestant
upbringing but to actually become Catholics is quite
striking.
All the best,
R K Mickey